It was five years before the distribution of the prizes began. It took this length of time because a lawsuit which was brought by certain members of the Nobel family against the validity of the will had to be decided, and then the estate had to be liquidated. If the then head of the family, Emanuel Nobel, had joined the rest in the protest, the will would have been broken, to his own great advantage; but Emanuel Nobel refused his consent to this step. He declared that his uncle’s will was sacred to him, and he took the ground that it must be faithfully carried out in all respects, even in regard to the fifth clause, which was especially endangered.
A letter dated April 13, 1898, from the executor of the will, brought me interesting particulars regarding the whole matter. Mr. Ragnar Sohlmann wrote:
... As you will have learned from the papers, certain members of the Nobel family have been attempting to break Herr Nobel’s will in the Swedish courts, and especially on the ground that no residuary legatee is constituted. The Nobel fund as created by the will itself lacks the necessary elements—so they claim—for performing its functions,—that is to say, administrators.
To this we shall reply that all necessary elements have been provided by the will, namely, the capital, the scope of action, and the institutions designated to perform the action,—the Swedish Academy and the Norwegian Storthing. The mere organization—so we shall urge—belongs evidently to the task conferred upon the executors and the Academy.
Originally the complainants conceived the plan of bringing the suit before a French court by endeavoring to prove that Herr Nobel’s legal residence was not in Sweden but in Paris. They regarded the French laws as more favorable to their claims than the Swedish, and this undoubtedly would have been the case. We have so far succeeded in preventing the execution of this plan, and only a few days ago the highest court of Sweden rendered the decision that Bofors was Herr Alfred Nobel’s legal residence.
The fact that Herr Emanuel Nobel, of St. Petersburg, and the whole Russian branch of the family decline to take part in the suit forms a very important factor in the coming trial. This circumstance assures the fulfillment of the will in so far as it concerns the corresponding portion of the property. In consequence, the will may be regarded as established regarding eight twentieths of the whole estate. That diminishes also the chances for a judicial declaration of the invalidity of the remaining twelve twentieths.
The chief danger for the will lies in the actual animosity which at the present time obtains between Sweden and Norway, and in the fear here entertained—even among the members of the government—that the whole thing might give rise to further irritation between the two countries. The conservatives especially believe—or pretend to believe—that the Norwegian Storthing might use the prize to “bribe” other countries to oppose Sweden. And they have certainly been given some ground for their fears by the appointment of Björnson, who is regarded as Sweden’s worst enemy and is on the committee which is to award the prizes. The truth of the matter is that the members of the Nobel family who are trying to break the will are supported by the conservatives here, even by some members of the government.[[17]]
So far my correspondent, who indicated that these communications were confidential, not designed for publication. Of course, as long as the matter was undecided I did not give out the above information; but now, since the lawsuit was long ago decided in favor of the validity of the will, and the accompanying circumstances have become an open secret, I may be permitted to regard the injunction of privacy as removed. But it is a matter of universal interest to see how picayune politics everywhere harbors suspicions and enmities, and how, in general, the “conservatives” are distrustful of the peace movement and kindred matters. Now the Swedish-Norwegian controversy has been settled; Björnson is no longer counted as an enemy of Sweden. He received from the hand of the King himself the Nobel prize for literature, and, in company with Emanuel Nobel, dined at the royal table, on which occasion Oscar II conversed in the most friendly spirit with the Norwegian bard.
The first distribution of the prizes took place on the tenth of October, 1901, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. At commemorative exercises in Stockholm the King himself delivered to the laureates the four prizes assigned by the Swedish Academy. The peace prize was awarded by the Nobel committee of the Storthing.
In the eight years that have passed since then the peace prize has been awarded as follows: 1901, Frédéric Passy and Henri Dunant;[[18]] 1902, Élie Ducommun and Albert Gobat; 1903, William Randal Cremer; 1904, Institut du droit international; 1905, Bertha von Suttner; 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt; 1907, Ernesto Teodoro Moneta and Louis Renault; 1908, K. P. Arnoldson and M. F. Bajer.